Introduction
Risk is daring to do something that you are not sure if you will survive, make it a success, or lose it, but it’s done with the hope of being successful. It is a choice one makes but not fate.
Key concepts/thoughts/points of the author
- Risk as a definitive factor for the difference between the past and the present
Peter L. Bernstein illustrates how risk defines the past and the present. According to the author, it took humans a long time to establish the bridge between the past and the present. This bridge is a risk, which separated what the present people did differently from the early men and women. In other words, he tries to emphasize the importance of taking risks, which is a game of chance that would lead to the revolutionary more scientific, and mathematical laws of probability.
- Risk taking as a rational process
According to this author, the difference between modern risk and early forms of risks such as gambling is that the former is being applied rationally. While gambling was more of informal risk-taking and relied more on gods of luck, modern risk-taking is more systematic and at the same time scientific in nature. He shows that by taking risks, the economic growth of the country is propelled to higher levels. The concept of the author is to help people know how to understand risks, measure and weigh the consequences that may be experienced as a result of taking risks. He explains how a group of thinkers had visions on how to put the future at the test of the present. He also shows how those thinkers defied the gods by probing the darkness of the past beliefs in search of opportunities. It’s the change of the attitude in managing risks that have led to a human passion for games and hence into economic growth, improvement in life quality, and the progress of the technology.
- Risk and decision-making
Through risk management, there is diversity in decision making such as wealth allocation, protection of public health, planning a family, planting, and marketing of the produce. It is the discoveries about the nature of risk and the art and science of decision-making that would determine the success or failure of the risk taken. The contemporary society has the ability to predict, with higher precision, what will happen in the future. Time leads to the transformation of risks shaping the nature of the risk and thus the future is the playing field. Time is the major factor when decisions made can not be changed.
There is also the probability theory which was for the Greeks as they were good mathematicians and had a mystery in logic, though they never ventured into that because they did not have the interest. Civilization would have progressed faster had the Greeks ventured their fascination with the probability theory.
Discussions
The Author’s thoughts are based on risk-taking and risk management. He thinks that the world would be a very boring place if people had no confidence in their fortune. Without venturing into risk-taking there would be no much investment.
Although the author is right on the value of risk-taking in that many investments have been made by great risk takers and scientific innovation has been established by great thinkers, the notion that risk-taking can be accurately predicted is not right. Risk-taking is full of uncertainties, and it’s not far from gambling, a game of chance. In fact, the author’s belief that people who engaged in gambling did not have much thought on winning and losing is not true. This is because risks are transformed and shaped with time. Time also matters a lot when it comes to making decisions especially decisions that can not be changed such as changing jobs or even declaring war.
It is indeed true that risk-taking can lead to economic prosperity and offer a guide on how to balance the moral against the profits of a free market in case prosperity fails. There were different forms of gambling in the past and these include the dice game, a card game that was developed in Asia from the earliest forms of telling fortunes, and the game of poker which was mostly an American variation. All these games are still in existence, even though in a modified or improved version.
On the issue of probability, it was concluded by the philosophers that there is only one chance in four and that each side of double doubt is given a chance of fifty-fifty (Bernstein, 1996). For instance, there is the probability that change would have come without views of the present, but with an attitude of the future if the concept of risk was not incorporated into our cultures. Yes, it’s true probability made people view the future as a matter of luck of random variations and decision making was mainly driven by their instincts. However, it must be noted that early innovations such as the abacus system led to the introduction of new methods of counting. This led to timekeeping, more ambitions, and well-explained methods of production. There were also changes in ideas that weakened the domination of the Catholic Church and this was wrong as it interfered with human relationship with God. The ideas here were for the mastery of risk. This warned people to be responsible for the consequences of the decision they made.
What to do with the concepts and their effects on thinking or behavior
These concepts can be used in encouraging people to always be ready to venture into risks as long as the risk is taken is of great value and is assumed to bring prosperity or benefit the community. It is through taking risks that many inventions were made by the great philosophers in the world such as Pascal and Fermat who took risks to handle many issues of growing complexity and practical importance. They tried to recognize that these issues were the major fundamental aspects of human existence in the world.
The concept of a new numbering system is a good one and can be used in the modern world because it fosters thinking, encourages timekeeping, and elaborates methods of production.
The concept of probability can be used to create ideas on how the future will be through its suggestions that the future may be predictable and controlled partly through risk management which is the guiding tool in decision making. Probability theory can be used in engineering. This concept has affected me in that being encouraged to take risks in a manageable way because had it not been for these theories, designing of the great bridges would not have been successful, children would still be struggling with polio, we would be having airplanes as all these would just be a dream. So all these things came to pass because people were willing to take risks.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the ability to take risks, manage them and make wise choices is a key factor that can drive the economic system to higher levels.
Reference List
Bernstein, P. (1996). Against the gods: The remarkable story of risk. New York: John Wiley and Sons.